CyanogenMod forced to change domain name and email address after alleged extortion attempt [Update: old domain is back]

Everyone’s favorite custom ROM maker, CyanogenMod, posted on their blog today that they will be changing their domain name and their email address due to an alleged extortion attempt by a once trusted member of their team. The new website will be temporarily hosted at www.cyanogenmod.org and the new email address has been changed to cmcyanogenmod@gmail.com

It is sad to see this type of corruption and greed in the typically friendly, team-oriented developer environment. CyanogenMod insists that it will be taking legal punitive action against the perpitrator, and will more than likely win the case. Yet we all know that in the end, everyone (including users) lose, since attention is taken away from the intensive task of developing ROMs and placed on unnecessary quarrels and disputes.

The issue shouldn’t interrupt users from downloading and installing thew new CM10 ROMS, however, which can be found at get.cm if you’re interested in that sort of thing. Just remember to flash at your own risk!

Update

And just like that the problem with the extortionist has been resolved peacefully and CyanogenMod’s site has been moved back to www.cyanogenmod.com. Cyanogen himself posted on twitter a few minutes ago that they have resolved the problem amicably. He encourages everyone to “just forget about this”.